PropinQuity, by mercutio

Note from Mercutio

This is an alternate story based on "Only Human" by Alara Rogers (aleph@netcom.com), although it isn't in her continuity. I got sufficiently obsessed by the story "Only Human" that I wrote an alternate set in this universe. Alara's permission has been secured for this.

Also, this story contains sex, so if that sort of thing bothers you, you might want to skip out now.

The morning after is where this begins, where Q is denying anything happened. Anderson is forced to drag the secrets of transwarp out of Q, and uses Naomi as a bargaining chip, forcibly removing her from Q. Q goes on a hunger strike, and on the third day, decides to kill himself. Anderson comes in just in time to save him. He's patched up in Sickbay, but by that time is catatonic and refusing to speak to anybody. Naomi chews Anderson out and extracts a promise from her that Anderson will never try to separate the two of them again. Naomi coaxes Q from his catatonia and he cries.

It's established here that Medellin meets weekly with Naomi to counsel her, although Naomi, aware of her promise to Q to not discuss him is entirely non-cooperative. Medellin also plants the idea in Q's head that he has to give Naomi sexual pleasure, or she'll leave him. Q actually makes an attempt, but botches it, and drives Naomi out deliberately, humiliated. Naomi goes rock
climbing. After that, they reconcile, and Naomi coaxes Q into making another attempt at taking the sexual initiative.

Harry Roth sounds Naomi out on the subject of her relationship with Q, extremely jealous that she could do something he couldn't. Naomi doesn't want to talk to him, but inadvertantly gives Harry the idea that she wants him to go to bed with Q. Harry seduces Q; however, Q is repulsed and hurt by sex and drives Harry away. Naomi arrives in time to figure out what happen, and after comforting Q (can't kick a hurt dog), goes out to wreak havoc on the starbase by trying to start a fight in a bar. Her attempt fails spectacularly, since no one in their right mind wants to start a fight with a 5'3" female. Q is summoned, and takes her home, where they fight about whether he should have known better than to go to bed with Harry. Naomi goes off to cry, and Q comes in to comfort her, deeming her his friend.

Chapter Five Contains sex, and graphic depictions of torture, but not together

The Dilkinen are threatening the starbase, demanding the surrender of Q. Naomi first tries to scold Harry, then engineers a reconciliation between Q and Harry when she realizes the problem wasn't really his fault. Q tacitly admits that he and Naomi are lovers by allowing her to spend the night with him, despite Security's presence in their suite. Naomi is kidnapped by the Dilkinen, who torture her to get Q up to their ship. The two of them are destined to be part of a reenactment of the ritual which Q more or less engineered when he visited the Dilkinen as an all-powerful being. Q admits that he cares for Naomi. Q is tortured physically, and then mentally raped. He discovers that he has some limited mental defenses. The Dilkinen relent their revenge upon discovering that Q is not the demon they remember, and leave Naomi and Q adrift in a lifepod to live or die by chance. Q sets up a rescue beacon, and they are picked up by a ship from the starbase.

Chapter Six Contains sex, and annoying small children, but not together :-)

Q and Naomi recover from the Dilkinen attack. Naomi is extremely depressed by this incident, and fearful that it will occur again. She meets a new programmer, Dr. Farish, who insults her. There's a party to welcome them back and celebrate their safe return from the Dilkinen. Naomi is invited by her ex-boyfriend to bring Q and come stay with his family. She and Q go. Q uses the excuse of a vacation to avoid the problem of needing to send Naomi away from him for her own safety. Dharvi's children immediately take to Q and hate Naomi because she looks like their mother. Q is jealous of Dharvi. Dharvi helps Naomi realize that she does want to stay with Q, despite her fear of being killed, and that she needs to talk to Q about this, which she later does, purging her doubts about his culpability in the Dilkinen incident. Dharvi procures a telepathic bodyguard for Q and Naomi, who Q accepts reluctantly after he realizes that this additional security may allow him to justify allowing Naomi to stay with him. After many abortive attempts, Naomi and Q are finally able to share a moment uninterrupted by the children, due to Sanaharrar (the bodyguard).

Q and Naomi arrive back at Starbase 56. Q believes he has to send Naomi away for her own good, and they have a tiff. While Naomi is off catching up on work, Q2 arrives and tells Q that he's made a good start at learning to be human although most of it's been the work of a hormonally deluded female, and that he'll be back in ten or twenty years to check up on Q. Q is not happy with this, and on probing, learns that the Q Continuum has been pointing assassins in his direction. Q2 agrees to stop this, and leaves. Q is very depressed to learn he won't get his powers back and tries to commit suicide, only to be stopped by Sanaharrar. Naomi discusses the situation with Q until Q more or less agrees this all may have been for the best and that he no longer needs to send her away.

Admiral Pelz journeys to the starbase to convince Q to work on transwarp. When Q refuses, Naomi is worried about what Pelz might do to Q and tries to convince Pelz that this is not a good idea. Pelz thinks Naomi is offering something more here than she actually is. Q is hurt by what he sees as a betrayal (Naomi trying to make a compromise and get him to at least pretend to work on transwarp) and pulls away from Naomi, while formulating his own plan. Naomi presents Pelz with a visual record of Q's suicide attempt from the last time he was asked to work on transwarp. Pelz agrees to back down. When Pelz tries to do so publicly, Q presents his own counterproposal. Since Q no longer requires the Federation to protect him from assassination, he doesn't need them at all. They in fact need him. Pelz is forced to renegotiate the terms of Q's contract with Starfleet to something to Q's benefit. Naomi and Q reconcile.

Naomi starts to plan a surprise birthday party for Q. Medellin tries to talk to Q about sexual infidelity and what causes it, but Q walks out on her. Naomi rubs Q's neck and back; they talk about death and the meaning of life. Q teases Naomi during sex to the point where she's unable to have an orgasm. Naomi tosses him out of bed. Q leaves their quarters and doesn't come back.

Chapter Ten Contains a lot of discussion of not having sex, and some sex itself

Q goes to Harry's quarters to sulk, coming back only after Naomi seeks him out and apologizes. At that point, Naomi thinks all is well, but Q refuses to sleep with her. Things continue at a stalemate, with Q having vivid nightmares and coming to sleep with her with pretending that he's not. Naomi throws the surprise birthday party anyway, and Q enjoys it. After the party, they get back together, Q reluctantly accepting her back.

Q decides to get his antiques back, and goes to get them. Anderson can't do it right then, so while Naomi goes to her appointment with Li, Q and Harry go off to chat about the many deficiencies of women.

Naomi announces to Q that she's three months pregnant with a child which is genetically identical to Q. Q is unhappy about this and leaves for the Daystrom Institute. Naomi bears the brunt of gossip back home from people who know Q is sterile and suspect that the baby might belong to Admiral Pelz. The base is divided between people who dislike Q for running off, and who think Naomi did a very bad thing in getting pregnant and expecting Q to like it. Naomi creates a holodeck simulation of her mother to have someone impartial to talk to. At the Daystrom Institute, Q is worshipped by almost everyone, and he hates it because he'd rather be tearing other people apart than talking about things he barely knows anything about. The stay is supposed to be a month, but Q finds it difficult to be celibate that long, and ends up sleeping with his guide, and then harshly rejecting her. He comes home feeling guilty for what happened and still upset with Naomi for having caused this with her ill-planned desire to have children. However, they're deeply relieved to see each other and reunite happily for the moment.

Jinn plays a practical joke on D'oritt. Saba gives Naomi the gift of a baby's rattle. That evening, Q discovers that he is impotent due to his disgust with Naomi's pregnancy, and becomes upset with this. The next day, Naomi goes to a doctor's appointment and finds out that she is going to have a girl. Harry has lunch with Q while Naomi is gone; Q has a heart attack and is beamed to Sickbay with Harry. Li suspects that this is a suicide attempt on Q's part, since Nausimal (a purgative) is something Q is violently allergic to. Naomi believes it was a murder attempt, and that the drug was administered through the replicator and begins tracking down the killer. Security suspects Naomi as the killer, and arrests her.

Naomi is left alone in the brig by Parkinson as revenge for humiliating him. While she's there, D'oritt pays her a visit and begs Naomi to understand that this was all a prank which went wrong. Naomi refuses. Q attempts to make Anderson see reason about this, but Anderson expresses her sympathy and leaves. D'oritt makes another attempt on Q's life, and is caught by Sanaharrar. Anderson has Naomi released, but restricts her computer privileges. Naomi goes to Jinn and Farish to help her to prove D'oritt's guilt. There is a final face-off between Q, Naomi, Anderson and Webber, where Anderson agrees incidents like this will not be allowed to happen again.

D'oritt receives a relatively light punishment. Anderson cracks down on the playing of pranks by the programmers, an action which is resented by Jinn. Q organizes a surprise baby shower for Naomi in retaliation for the birthday party she threw him; the shower is held by Diana.

Naomi goes into labor prematurely, and is whisked to Sickbay. Li restricts her to quarters for her own good, a decision which Naomi is unhappy with. Q claims paternity leave to get out of working. Jinn visits Naomi, and she finds out what his punishment was for playing a prank on her at her shower.

Q tells a story while she goes into labor. Due to how Li made her feel over the premature labor incident, Naomi insists on walking to Sickbay. Q visits Harry during the labor, and Ariadne is born without incident. Naomi and Ariadne go home soon thereafter, and proceeds to fall apart, unable to deal with the stresses of trying to take care of Ariadne by herself and keep up the commitments Q expects of her. Q takes steps to get Naomi child care.

Q decides to go back to work. Anderson informs Q that he will need to take parenting classes and make arrangements to legally become Ariadne's father. Queria, Q's sister, comes to visit. Naomi is at first jealous of her, thinking that she is Om, and then angry at Queria for not having come to see Q when he really needed her. Queria immediately takes to Ariadne as being her niece. After talking to Q, Naomi makes up with Queria and Queria tries to give her some tips on how to deal with Q.

Naomi's mother comes to visit, and stays only for a few hours, despite the length of the trip to the starbase. She and Naomi reconcile despite a few squabbles with Q who is hostile towards Dorcas, and an untimely interruption by Medellin who is trying to find out more about Naomi from her relatives and ends up discovering that Naomi's mother is even more closemouthed than Naomi. Naomi and her mother agree to visit more often, although there are still a number of unresolved conflicts.

Riker comes to visit Q and asks him to come visit the Enterprise. Q agrees, and he, Naomi, Ariadne, Sanaharrar and two security guards take his ship to the Enterprise. However, this is Thomas Riker, not Will Riker, and he has just kidnapped them for the Maquis. The Maquis attempt to convince Q to work with them by first torturing him, then when that doesn't work, try to convince Naomi that they'll hurt her if she can't get him to cooperate any other way. Naomi convinces the Maquis that they'll be better off trying to work out a mutually beneficial relationship rather than using threats. They agree, and a contract is struck. However, Q is unable to communicate what he knows to the Maquis, and both the Cardassians and the Romulans start pursuing the Maquis to get Q. The Maquis try to return Q, and find Anderson unwilling to take him. They end up surrendering themselves in order to get away from the Cardassians and Romulans. Naomi and Q return unharmed.

Sanaharrar leaves Q and Naomi to return to her home world for mating. A celebratory party is held to welcome Q and Naomi safely back. Naomi has Q go ahead so that she can prepare a practical joke for Jinn. She is attacked by a shapechanger who takes her form and goes to the party. Q makes a remark that causes the shapechanger to panic and try to kill him there. Azoth kills the shapechanger, and Q hits him for having killed Naomi. Naomi is discovered alive in their quarters, but injured. She's taken to Sickbay, where Q goes to see her.

Naomi proves to be a bad patient, but is finally let go from Sickbay. When she goes home, Q informs her that she has to leave him. Naomi agrees, which shocks and depresses Q. He tries to commit suicide, and she substitutes a sedative for the injection he thinks is lethal. The next morning, Naomi tells him that she was just going to leave until Sanaharrar returned, but now she's not going to leave at all.

Naomi accompanies Q to the parenting classes held by Medellin in the holodeck. He proves to be not very good at these and Naomi must coerce him into going again. Q discovers there can be rewards to parenting, but he doesn't like them very much.

Ariadne is now three years old. Naomi and Q's life has settled down to an alarming degree. They decide to leave the starbase, and settle on the Enterprise as their destination. Anderson aids them in this, but does her best to fool Picard into not knowing who he's getting as his new physicist, in order to repay him for having dumped Q on her at the start of all of this. When Q and Naomi arrive on the Enterprise, Picard tries to get rid of them, first by talking with the commodore, then by trying to talk to Q. He cannot change anyone's mind, and decides, after seeing Q with Naomi and Ariadne, to just live with the situation.

Picard asks Crusher to find out if Ariadne could possibly be a Q. Crusher examines Naomi and Q and finds out about Jason Hartfeil. Troi talks with Q and tells him that he's adjusted well to being human. Q confronts Guinan and declines to start anything with her. Naomi warns Guinan that if she tries anything, Naomi will make sure she's suitably repaid.

Naomi, Q and Harry tour the physics lab. While they're there, Q contracts a virus. Naomi gets him to Sickbay, where Crusher gives him a drug for it that has the side effect of making Q euphorically happy. He tells everyone and everything that he loves them, including Picard, who comes to visit him. After the drug wears off, Q is unable to remember any of this, but is very depressed due to the hangover from the lack of the drug. He decides to commit suicide but changes his mind. Naomi believes that he tried to commit suicide and treats him like that, which is good since Q remains very depressed. Crusher gives Q a sedative to help him sleep the aftereffects of the other drug off. He comes off it gradually, recovering his normal self. Naomi goes with Harry to Ten Forward, where he tells her about the new romance in his life and asks for her advice.

This is the final chapter of PropinQuity. Q2 appears and gives Q his powers back. Q disappears from the Enterprise. Naomi assumes he's dead, and mourns his loss. Harry is permanently involved with his new love. Q returns after three months to ask Naomi to go with him. Naomi refuses, because of Ariadne. Q promises to return if she needs him.